Sep 10 2010

Panel troubles and more

The last few days have been total devoted to getting the panel ready for lettering as I thought the effort would be short and easy.    While looking at the panel I decided I didn’t like the big chrome bezels of the LED lights.  I floxed the holes shut and redrilled them to accommodate simple LED holders.  I dont like the knobs either, so I am going to machine some that I like.  It is easy to do on a lathe.  I also cut the shaft of the potentiometer control shaft off so I can reduce the exposure of the knobs. 

The before look

The after look.

I decided it was best to fully assemble everything to make sure there were no surprises.  The nutplates for the panel were floxed in and I like the stiffness of the panel when placed in it’s frame and secured.

Note the gold box in the above picture (the autopilot elevator servo. 

When looking from the other side I noticed it was going to hit the com panel and transponder radio cans.  FU****K!!  The servo has to go.

You can see the carbon box just forward of the servo into which the radio can is secured.  Bye bye, servo….

Not only did the servo hit but when I changed out from a Garmin 327 to a Garmin 330 transponder, I found the transponder’s can was 2.5″ longer than what I had planed for which made the can hit the elevator control rod.   SH*T! 

Major redesign time!  Hum, IF I switch the places of the com and transponder then the com panel (with the shorter can) will allow me to gain the clearance I need for the control stick.    After a few hours work…done.  Clearance is good now.

Since the panel is taking longer than I anticipated to finish off,  I took a few hours to to get some critical measurement from the engine I needed to send to Airflow Performance so I could get the fuel lines made.  AFP currently has the fuel servo for a minor change, and they were waiting for me to call them with the injector line lengths so they could build them and ship all the stuff back to me.    I finished making the cylinder cooling plates (an improved design to the down draft system) and took some heavy wire to simulate the fuel lines and route everything to make template lines. 

After a while of bending, cutting, rebending, etc I was satisfied with the routing and placed my order for the lines.  They should be here by next Wed.  I’ll then be able to fully assemble the engine! 

I found a new home to re-install the autopilot servo.  Here, I am using the fiberglass spring template to make a new control arm for the elevator torque tube.  I’ll attach the servo to this tab.  It will act as a carbon control arm for the servo.